I want to be happy by your side
by bluebran
Summary: One-shot: When Arthur realized she loved him back... Cover image credits on my profile page


_I originally wrote this piece in Spanish for a contest at another website a while ago and eventually translated it to English. I just found it and decided to upload it here. I hope you enjoy it!_

It was a nice spring morning, but being Saturday, it was still too early, so there weren't many students out of bed, certainly less outside de castle. The Great Hall was almost empty, except for a few sleepy students who enjoyed the breakfast. At the Gryffindor table, a tall gawky boy chewed absently a toast while he made some sketches on a piece of parchment, making notes in the corners with his tight handwriting. His glasses, tilted on his long nose covered with freckles, gave him a funny look, and behind them hid a couple of faraway and intense blue eyes, that contrasted with his characteristic red hair. Shortly afterwards, after scratching his nose with the wrong side of the quill, staining it with ink without even noticing, he stood up, clumsily took his bag and notes and left the room striding. He couldn't help squinting when a powerful ray of sunshine lit his face up the moment he opened the heavy wooden door. Once outside, he made his way to the lake, thoughtful, and flopped down under an old tree by the shore. The view from there was beautiful, but the boy was very concentrated on what he was doing. Or at least, he seemed to be: after half an hour, it became evident that it was giving him a hard time, because he left the notes aside, sighting frustrated, and he lied back on the thick trunk arm-folded. Seconds later, he took the quill again and a blank piece of parchment and started writing quickly, crossing out every new sentence that stained the sheet. Finally, he ended up crumpling whatever he was writing, annoyed, and throwing it into his bag with apathy. A cheerful, familiar voice took him out of his thoughts.  
"And what's the _muggle_ knick-knack keeping you awake this time, Arthur?" the boy looked up so quickly that the movement made him worthy of a pain in the neck that lasted several days. When he did so, his eyes met a pair of huge brown eyes that sparkled naughtily, as they always did. The girl's words had come with a sweet and perfect smile that took his breath away, and the tiny freckles sprinkled all over her face made her look even more charming. After taking off her shoes, she plumped herself down next to him, resting on her elbows and stretching her naked legs, covered only by worn-out shorts, on the grass. Arthur's jaw stopped responding as soon as he laid his eyes on them, illuminated by the dancing beams of sunlight that slipped through the branches. He surreptitiously casted his eyes over them, carefully looking at every detail of her body, from her generous hips to her little feet. When he looked up at her again, his heart raced: with her eyes closed and her blubbery lips parted, the girl enjoyed the soft breeze that caressed her face and slightly messed up her long curly red hair. An irresistible smile softened even more her features when, opening her eyes, she sat up again staring at Arthur, who stretched his arm and took a twig out of her hair delicately, and then tucked one of her locks behind her small ear, making the girl blush. The same happened to the boy when he noticed that gesture, almost involuntary: he had seen her so beautiful and carefree he had done it without even thinking.  
"What were you doing? What were you trying to figure out this time?" she inquired, smiling once again.  
"And how do you know I was thinking about that?" he answered, smiling too. She was the only one who could be interested in what he did: of course, she didn't admit it, and she never stopped mocking him about his _muggle knick-knacks_, as she called them, but even though, she always watched him sketch or dismantle the few artifacts he had managed to sneak into the school, and she listened to him attentively and with a funny wrinkle between her eyebrows when he tried to explain her what he had found out.  
"Oh, it's easy" she answered, kneeling closer to him and looking at him leaning her head to one side. Merlin, she was gorgeous. The red curls fell naturally on the pale mottled skin of her bare shoulders, and contrasted with her emerald t-shirt, which accentuated every single one of her curves. And those eyes! Those passionate eyes that radiated energy, that were glued to his, attracted him with a strength impossible to describe. "You pull such an adorable face! So concentrated in your notes, frowning and ignoring everything around you…" Arthur blushed again, smiling timidly and looking away while he adjusted his glasses with one hand.  
"Oh, that" he said laughing "Yeah, I know I get too obsessive with that stuff, but it's just that…" he tried to explain gesticulating with his hands and shrugging "…I love them. I don't know, they're like a challenge, has it ever happened to you that you can't take something out of your head, something you have a passion for?"  
"Mm, oh yes, it has happened to me" she whispered, sighting absentmindedly and looking away, thoughtful and blushing once again. "Anyway, I get you, I can see you love doing that stuff… that's why I enjoy so much watching you" she let out, looking at him in the eye with a smile which was both guilty and cute. "I enjoy watching you so concentrated, so excited, so happy – she thought – God, he is so sexy! And sweet, smart, attentive…" And that was her train of thought when he attracted her attention again  
"Molly?"  
"I love how my name sounds in his lips… No, no, Molly, focus!" She shook her head a bit and looked at him in the eye again. However, Arthur hadn't noticed the girl's distraction, cause that last innocent but important confession had somehow shocked him, but finally he had decided to let it go: probably he had made a much bigger deal out of it than she had.  
"Yes?" Arthur opened his mouth to say what was in his mind, but he didn't dare and closed it again. Finally, he spoke, more to himself than to Molly.  
"You think…? Do you think that if you are madly in love with someo… with _something_, if you think you can't live without it, but you're afraid you're not good enough… you must try to get it anyways? At least…try?" he ended up asking, slightly confused with his own answer. Molly stared at him a bit puzzled.  
"Of course you have to. You always have to look for happiness" she answered, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "But Arthur, not good enough? You are amazing with these things! Haven't I always told you that it doesn't matter if you're not good at Potions, or if you hate Transfiguration? That is not what you like, this thing you do is what you actually like, and it's easy to see it. It makes you so happy… you don't have to try to reach someone else's expectations, what matters is that you achieve what you want in life. What matters is that you get to be happy" she repeated, to close her speech. Arthur, at first pretty confused, cause he didn't see it coming, was moved by her words and her faith in him. Without even noticing what he was doing, he started playing with one of her red curls that the wind had moved from its place.  
"Thanks, Molly. You're great…" he said, stopping in the middle of the sentence in order to not reveal some things he didn't want to. She didn't seem to realize. "And what about you? What do you want from life? You have a lot to choose: you're amazing at Charms, Defense Against Dark Arts, and you're really good at almost every other subject too…  
"Yes…I guess" she said, slightly grimacing.  
"But…?"  
"But I'm not sure that's what I want. I don't know if that kind of things can make me happy…" she answered, doubtful "Look, a lot of people have already told me I'm crazy, I don't want you to tell me the same thing, ok? If that's what you think, you shut up."  
"It's a promise" he answered, serious. Molly smiled; he was the only one who could take her so seriously. It was adorable and charming.  
"What I want is to have a family, and take care of it. I want to marry the man in my life, to have children, to raise them, to make our house a home and to love them. I want us to have our island of happiness in this messed up world… cause we all know that there's something wrong going on in the wizarding world, really wrong. But I want to be able to give my family happiness and love." She said all this staring into space, and when she ended, she looked at Arthur in the eye, in a slightly defiant way, as if she was daring him to laugh or to try to discourage her. But he was looking at her in a way she wasn't able of recognizing; he had never looked at her like that, with such intensity.  
"What are you thinking in?" she snapped, a bit nervous. Merlin, why did she had to get like that! It was Arthur; she had known him for years! Why was so important to her what he thought?  
Arthur couldn't take his eyes off hers. What Molly has said had reached his heart and completely touched him. She was the most beautiful, smart, sweet and nice person he had ever known.  
"I'm thinking you'll be an amazing mother for our children…" he said without reflecting, as if he was thinking out loud. Molly's expression was worthy of being seen: her brown eyes, already huge, opened wide, and her generous mouth formed a funny and perfect "o". Her face dyed with an intense pink colour, which Arthur's skin seemed to copy when he was conscious of the words that had come out of his mouth.  
"I, I…uh… I'm sorry! I wasn't thinking, I mean, I was thinking, but I didn't want to say what I was thinking, I mean, don't think… I just… I wasn't supposed to say that, I was thinking…I" incapable of uttering a coherent sentence, Arthur wringed his hands with anxiety, without looking at the girl, who seemed to be speechless. When he realized his words didn't make sense, and it was in vain that he spoke, he looked up, mad at himself for having said what he did: now, he probably had frightened her away. Could he be any more stupid? But Molly was looking at him in a really special way, and that was how Arthur knew it: she was in love with him too. For a second, he doubted; was it possible? But, how hadn't he been capable of seeing it? If the only thing he lived for was for seeing her eyes, hearing her laughs, feeling her hands upon his; the only thing he lived for was recognizing in those gestures something that told him she felt the same way for him! Almost unable to believe a woman like her could want him, unable to believe that _that_ woman loved him, he slowly came closer to her, slightly leaning his head with his heart raced. Molly's breath went away when she felt Arthur's hands on her neck, and she closed her eyes waiting for that kiss yearned for so long, that kiss she had dreamt of so many times, that she had always imagined stealing. The boy, gently, kissed those berry lips that drove him mad; he kissed them over and over again. He moved apart his face from hers just for a second, long enough to whisper to her:  
"What I want is to be happy, by your side" And they finally vanished inside an intense and romantic kiss.


End file.
